Plain as the News on Your Face: Clinton Lies and Obstruction That TV News Has Ignored

Executive Summary

Major media figures reprimanded themselves for going "too far" with
too little information on the Monica Lewinsky story. But a Media
Research Center analysis of past TV coverage by Tim Graham presents
five Clinton practices that deserve investigation in the Lewinsky case
that the network news has downplayed or ignored in non-sexual scandals:

Hush Money for Friendly Witnesses. Before disgraced former
Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell testified before Whitewater
counsel Kenneth Starr, he gained a half-million dollars in "jobs"
secured by Clinton friends. The story drew only six full nightly news
stories.

Destruction or Hiding of Documents. Last November, a
mechanic discovered a stash of Whitewater documents, including a check
made out to Bill Clinton from Whitewater partner Jim McDougal, in the
trunk of a tornado-damaged Mercury Marquis. Clinton claimed he never
borrowed money from his felonious business partner, but the check
matched the amount of a Whitewater loan repayment. Only NBC broadcast a
full story.

Violating the Privacy Rights of Adversaries. When Senators
investigated the Clinton staff's collection of 900 FBI files of
Republican White House employees in the fall of 1996, they found the
log listing who gained access to the files was missing. Only CNN
reported it briefly.

Failing to Comply with Subpoenas. Well after DNC Finance
Director Richard Sullivan testified before the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee, the DNC belatedly released 4,000 pages of subpoenaed
documents from Sullivan's office. In House testimony, Deputy White
House Counsel Cheryl Mills admitted withholding a damaging memo on the
White House Office Data Base for 15 months. Neither of these stories
got any TV news coverage.

Keeping Meetings Secret by Filing False Statements. Judge
Royce Lamberth fined the White House nearly $286,000 for its misleading
testimony in a lawsuit demanding open meetings by the Clinton health
plan task force. The networks totally ignored this story.

Introduction

The Monica Lewinsky story presented the media with a potent cocktail
of boss-intern sexual allegations and perjury charges that have
captured the usually apolitical public even as it decries the story's
overcoverage. News organizations and "committees of concerned
journalists" have reprimanded themselves for their own coverage of the
Monicagate story and criticized the TV networks for going "too far"
with too little information. But a hard look at past TV coverage
suggests that the problem with television news isn't the lack of
substantive new information. It's the networks' long-standing failure
to report the Clinton administration's tendency to mislead the public
or obstruct justice, even when the nation's leading newspapers do the
legwork for them.

Polls suggest the public believes that the Monicagate story is
simply a sordid tale of office hanky-panky that a sex-starved media
could not resist. The most serious aspects of the story -- coverups,
perjury, suborning perjury, and obstruction of justice -- have
antecedents in previous White House attempts to stonewall damaging
Clinton scandals, scandals that the networks have covered with much
less fervor than the Monicagate story. If the networks wished to
improve their public reputations instead of presenting themselves as
ruthless exploiters of Clinton's personal excesses, they could
re-examine past Clinton scandals to explain to viewers how the White
House damage-control strategy on the Monicagate story is quite similar
to their strategy to kill other damaging stories.

In theory, there are three stages to news coverage of scandal
stories: allegation, investigation, and resolution. On too many
stories, the networks won't even begin to touch the allegation, even
after some legal body has resolved the story for them. This analysis
lists only five well-reported stories in the last two years out of many
reports from the nation's leading newspapers, many of which cannot
plausibly be linked to a "vast right-wing conspiracy." To explain these
stories, we've separated them into four parts: the initial charge, a
subsequent revelation reported in print, why it was important, and how
the TV networks (ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and CNN's evening show The World Today) covered (or didn't cover) it, especially when the story was truly "news" -- in the 48 hours after it broke.

1. Hush Money for Friendly Witnesses.

THE CHARGE: Hillary's former law partner and friend Webster
Hubbell was forced to resign in early 1994 as Associate Attorney
General, the Justice Department's number-three position, for embezzling
nearly a half-million dollars from the Rose Law Firm, with some of his
false expense accounts signed by his Rose Law partner Hillary Clinton.
Last year, print reporters discovered Hubbell had been paid more than
$500,000 from dozens of Clinton-affiliated people for "jobs" (on which
little or no work was performed) before he testified to Whitewater
counsel Kenneth Starr, leaving the suspicion Hubbell was paid to keep
quiet.

WHAT PRINT MEDIA REPORTED: The New York Times first
put Hubbell's pre-prison bonanza at $400,000 in a March 6, 1997
front-page story. Two weeks later, the same paper found James Riady of
the Lippo Group put up $100,000 of that after five days of meetings
with White House officials. On April 6, the Los Angeles Times noted White House lawyer Jane Sherburne wrote "monitor cooperation" by Hubbell's name on a 1994 memo. In May, USA Today
revealed Clinton pal Vernon Jordan got Hubbell a job with Revlon, the
same company he later approached for Monica Lewinsky. In December, the Los Angeles Times
reported Mickey Kantor, the President's 1992 campaign manager and
Commerce Secretary, admitted he lied when he said he didn't attempt to
get Hubbell jobs.

WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT: These stories underline a conscious
plan to enrich Hubbell before he testified to Starr on Whitewater; the
President's use of Jordan and Kantor to get him out of trouble using
legally questionable methods; and the way Clinton associates lied about
their knowledge of and cooperation with the plan. Politically, the
charges could have been a nightmare: a man embezzles a half-million
dollars, and the White House shows that crime pays by rewarding him
with another half-million?

HOW TV NETWORKS COVERED IT: The networks aired only six evening news reports, four of them on February 9, 1997, when all the networks noted Time
magazine reported Starr was looking into it (and admitted Time Warner
hired Hubbell). The reports of a $400,000 killing, James Riady's
$100,000 after White House meetings, plans to "monitor" Hubbell's
cooperation with Starr -- never received more than one of the three
networks' attention in the 48 hours after the newspaper story ran.
Stories on Jordan's and Kantor's roles were ignored. (Jordan's Revlon
deal for Hubbell first made TV on the March 3, 1998 NBC Nightly News.)

2. Destruction or Hiding of Documents.

THE CHARGE: Obstruction of justice occurred in the
destruction of or hiding of relevant documents in the Whitewater
investigation. Rose Law Firm shreddings, late-appearing billing records
in the White House residence, and White House lawyers' meeting notes
like "Vacuum Rose Law Files" show important elements of the Whitewater
story may never be known.

WHAT PRINT MEDIA REPORTED: On November 6, Associated Press
reported the latest discovery of hidden documents came thanks to an
Arkansas tornado. Hidden and possibly forgotten in the trunk of a
tornado-damaged Mercury Marquis was a stash of Whitewater documents,
including a check made out to Bill Clinton from Whitewater partner Jim
McDougal. Former McDougal courier Henry Floyd just left the car with a
trunk full of bank documents after a dispute with a repair shop, where
it sat for nine years.

WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT: On November 10, 1997, NBC Nightly News
reporter Fred Francis explained: "Before junking [the car], mechanic
Johnny Lawhorn pried open the trunk and found a cashier's check for
$27,600 payable to Bill Clinton. Adding to the mystery, Bill Clinton
has testified that he never borrowed money from his Whitewater partner.
But the amount of the check corresponds exactly to the amount of a
Whitewater loan repayment. So why was it made out to Bill Clinton?
That's what the Whitewater grand jury wants to know." Was Clinton an
active partner in shady Whitewater deals? Francis added: "And although
Clinton's attorneys discredit the new documents, there are a trunk full
of bank records. Some of them relating to a time when Hillary Clinton
worked as a lawyer on another McDougal land deal, Castle Grande. Castle
Grande is a thousand acre tract that McDougal wanted to sell as trailer
home sites. The grand jury is now examining these documents to help
answer the question whether Mrs. Clinton has honestly portrayed her
role in the financing of that project."

HOW TV NETWORKS COVERED IT: ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and CNN's The World Today never covered it. Only NBC reported a full story. (CNN covered the revelation on the afternoon show Inside Politics. CBS included a brief mention on their low-rated show Saturday Morning.)

3. Violating the Privacy Rights of Adversaries.

THE CHARGE: In June 1996, the White House admitted aide Craig
Livingstone and others had collected FBI files on 338 Republican
officials from past administrations. Later, the real number of files
surpassed 900. In that month, the networks presented a short burst of
coverage which soon dropped to nothing. Reporters echoed U.S. News & World Report writer Gloria Borger's strange defense: "This White House inspires a presumption of incompetence."

WHAT PRINT MEDIA REPORTED: On September 25, 1996, Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) revealed a six-month
gap in the log which listed who at the White House was accessing FBI
background files on Republican White House employees. The Washington Times
bannered the news across page one the next day. On October 4, Sen.
Hatch released the deposition of White House aide Mari Anderson before
the Judiciary Committee. Anderson verified that pages of the log used
to record the taking of FBI files were missing. Anderson also asserted,
contradicting White House aide Craig Livingstone's assurances, that
Livingstone knew the Clinton White House was procuring the FBI files of
Republicans. Even The Washington Post put this story on its front page the next day.

WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT: This missing log could have been
compared to the 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes and Nixon
secretary Rose Mary Woods. Would the logs have implicated the President
or First Lady in the act of illegally reviewing the files of political
opponents to be used, say, in case the Republicans considered an
impeachment hearing? Would the White House be able to blackmail
opponents with embarrassing information? The case also underlined the
Clintons' penchant for dirt-gathering on their opponents, something the
press suggested was a surprise. (Borger, for one, insisted: "It is hard
to believe that Craig Livingstone...was ordered by his White House
superiors to get the goods on former Republican officials.") That
penchant still was not emphasized when the Washington Post
recently discovered the Clintons' lawyers have been using private
investigators in the Paula Jones case and other controversies since
1994.

HOW TV NETWORKS COVERED IT: Not one full evening news story. (The only coverage of the FBI files log was a CNN brief on both days, and one ABC Good Morning America brief.)

4. Failing to Comply with Subpoenas.

THE CHARGE: Despite claims of full cooperation with the
independent counsel and congressional investigators, the White House
often withheld subpoenaed materials for months, even years at a time.
Some of those delays concerned the White House Office Data Base, which
was created to help keep tabs on friends and supporters -- and big
donors. CBS and NBC touched on that story just once each in January
1997.

WHAT PRINT MEDIA REPORTED: Washington Post reporter
Bob Woodward's August 8, 1997 story began: "The Senate committee
examining campaign finance abuses has begun an investigation to
determine whether the Democratic National Committee obstructed the
panel's inquiry by not delivering until Monday 4,000 pages of documents
from the files of former DNC finance director Richard Sullivan.... DNC
officials said the documents, contained in two boxes, include 1,500
pages of Sullivan's handwritten notes, files on controversial
Democratic contributors such as Roger Tamraz and Johnny Chung, and 12
fundraising call sheets prepared for Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her
to call donors such as designer Ralph Lauren." Months after the
subpoenas arrived, the files supposedly were just found by Sullivan's
successor in the only filing cabinet in his office.

A similar example emerged on November 6, 1997, when Deputy White
House Counsel Cheryl Mills admitted in testimony before the House
Government Reform and Oversight Committee that she and former Counsel
Jack Quinn decided to withhold (for a total of 15 months) a White House
staffer's memo suggesting President Clinton wanted the newly created
White House Office Data Base (WHODB) shared with the Democratic
National Committee.

WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT: The White House's failure to produce
subpoenaed documents prevented the time-limited Senate Government
Affairs Committee investigation from developing. Instead of telling the
public about White House non-compliance, TV reports underlined how the
Senate was going nowhere fast. Part of the reason: their failure to
cover it.

HOW TV NETWORKS COVERED IT: None of the networks covered either story. (Two days later, NBC Meet the Press Host Tim Russert raised the Sullivan papers twice in one show.)

5. Keeping Meetings Secret by Filing False Statements.

THE CHARGE: The American Association of Physicians and
Surgeons (AAPS) filed suit in 1993 arguing that the Federal Advisory
Committee Act required the task force assembling the Clinton health
care plan to stop holding secret meetings, and instead hold meetings
open to the public, since the task force included non-government
employees, starting with the First Lady.

WHAT PRINT MEDIA REPORTED: Last December, Judge Royce
Lamberth fined the White House $286,000 for health czar Ira Magaziner's
lying (at White House lawyers' direction) about the composition of
Hillary's health care task force in order to keep meetings closed to
the public. Lamberth issued the fine to reimburse the AAPS for court
costs in their lawsuit against the administration. The White House
claimed throughout the litigation the task force had no
non-governmental employees on it. In 1995, Judge Lamberth asked the
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to probe Magaziner for
perjury, suggesting he must have known his declaration was false, since
employees of his private consulting firm were working on the task
force. (U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, who decided not to prosecute
Magaziner, is now the number two official in the Justice Department.)
After Lamberth levied the fine, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman
Bill Archer called on Magaziner to resign.

WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT: The White House response to the AAPS
lawsuit illustrated both the Clintons' penchant for secrecy and the
White House counsels' willingness to file intentionally misleading
briefs in a federal case.

HOW TV NETWORKS COVERED IT: Just as they'd ignored the AAPS
suit from the beginning, the networks aired nothing on the Lamberth
decision or Archer's call for Magaziner to step down. (Ten days after
Lamberth's decision and a day after Archer's request for Magaziner's
resignation, Tim Russert asked two questions late in an interview with
Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel on NBC's Meet the Press. But Russert never used his powers as NBC Washington Bureau Chief to place the story anywhere else on his network's news.)

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